Sorry for the delay in posting, yesterday was pretty busy. We got up, ate breakfast and then goofed around the hotel for the rest of the morning. Packing after living in a hotel for a week and knowing that you are just going to live in another hotel for another week is not very fun. Anyway, we packed, got checked out, and headed to the airport.
The airport was like any other airport, we got our boarding passes and headed to go through security. Jess went first with Samuel. She wasn’t happy with the experience because they took a lot of yogurt drinks that we had packed for Samuel, which was a bummer, but, at least they let us keep his bottles of juice, which was good.
Then it was my turn to go through security. It was funny because I forgot to take several things out of my pockets, including my cell phone (I was playing dumb American), so I got frisked by hand and by metal detector in a rather personal fashion. I also forgot to take my laptop out of my backpack and put it through the X-ray machine separately. So, when my bag got through the security person pointed at it and said “laptop?”, so I took it out and was putting in one of those bins to run back through the machine. But, it seems this security guard was easily distracted and walked away. So, after standing there for a moment wondering what to do, I just put the laptop back in my backpack and went on my merry way feeling very safe to be in an airport with such committed security personnel.
In the airport Jess and I started pontificating on ways that we could really stand out from crowd more while in China. The way we figured it I only stood out in a few ways.
- I’m a full head taller than everyone.
- I was wearing an awesome fedora. Very few people wear hats here at all, much less awesome ones like a fedora!
- I have a thick beard. No one in China seems to have facial hair. Side note here, today a bell hop asked me how long it took to grow my beard and guessed one year. I didn’t have try heart to tell him two weeks 🙂
- I was wearing toe shoes that I got just for this trip, because they are comfortable and awesome! Toe shoes are those shoes with each individual toe cut out into the shoe. They rock!
- I was wearing a big red backpack.
- Lets be honest here, I look like a bit of a goof anyway, so standing out is usually not an issue.
Huh, come to think of it, we never thought of more ways to stand out, oh well! Ok, enough pontificating, back to the play by play.
The plane was pretty nice. We had to take a bus out to the plane and Samuel loved that. He really loves buses, and I mean loves them a lot! So, needless to say he was pumped to ride on a bus and then to get on an airplane. He loved the plane ride, did great the whole time, got a little fussy on landing and then we got off and went to grab our bags.
We got our bags, found our guide and headed to the hotel. The trip to the hotel was pretty cool. Guangzhou is a huge city and reminded me of a mix between me high rises of New York and the neon lights of Las Vegas. It was also cool because the highway that we rode in on went through the city on one continuous bridge that kept the highway above street level. It was like the highway was on stilts just winding through the heart of the city, it was pretty neat to see.
Finally we got to the hotel and this place is awesome! It is hard to describe how truly swanky this place is, so you will have to look at the photos that are coming later to really see everything. But I will say, this is a great final destination in China and we are thankful for it.
Once we got into the room we realized how hungry we were, we ate “dinner” on the airplane, but you know how that is. Anyway, we got settled in and decided to venture out for our first American food since arriving in China. We went to Pizza Hut. I have to say, this is not your everyday Pizza Hut, it was nice, with a huge menu and lots to choose from. But, being away from home and being in Pizza Hut, we went with a veggie pizza and eagerly waited for our food. When we got our veggie pizza (with no mushrooms) the first thing I noticed was they presence of pineapple and corn on the pizza; wasn’t expecting that one! Anyway, we started eating and Jess went to feeding Samuel pizza for the first time, and he loved it. Let me tell you this boy can eat!
After enjoying our American meal we headed back to the swanky hotel and crashed hard. Traveling is tiring in general, traveling with an energetic two year old with a communication barrier between you is really tiring. We certainly slept well last night and were thankful for it.
Another update is coming shortly. Love from Guangzhou!
